External drive cannot be ejected

After upgrading from Parallels Desktop 15.1.5 to 17.1.4, I noticed that external drives can no longer be ejected when accessed in the VM. macOS then displays a warning when ejecting that there are open references to the drive.

A downgrade to 17.0.1 did not solve the problem. Only with the installation of 16.5.1 the problem disappeared. So the bug seems to affect all 17.x versions.

To reproduce:

1) Connect an external drive and access the drive via the mapped drive letter in the VM
2) Eject the external drive in macOS
3) macOS shows a warning that the drive cannot be ejected
4) sudo lsof /Volumes/Backup ('Backup' stands for volume name) shows that prl_vm_ap prevents the ejection

 

*bump*

 

Still no response from support? Is there a way to contact someone from the developer team?

 

if none of the parallels people answer here, i have had good experiences writing to one in a private conversation. they are very friendly and helpful, they just seem to have a lot on their mind.

feel free to let us know here what solutions your conversation has brought, @Nemensi.

 

Same here. No solution yet? I have been force ejecting since updating.

 

My only options under Actions is to update parallels tools or install parallels toolbox for windows (which I can't do because I am running on Windows 7) The other option to update parallels tools will force it into test mode, which I can never turn off or windows will stop working and in test mode, Windows becomes more vulnerable to threats. I'm not doing that. This forces me to use Windows without parallels tools. There has to be an update for parallels 17 to remedy this issue. I would have never upgraded had I known.

 

Reinstalling the tools doesn't help. This issue exists in all 17.x versions and also in 18.0. But it only occurs if you open a subdirectory on the drive. If you only access the root folder, the drive can be ejected.

 

If you access a subdirectory and don't kill the process that's doing it, the OS thinks it's still in use and won't eject it. This is the same as opening a terminal window in macOS and trying to access it directly through a cd to /Volumes/<disk name>/ without killing the terminal window. I suspect this is similar to what's happening behind the scenes in Parallels.

 

I know nothing about subdirectories lol. Is there something I can do to prevent having to force eject it? I plug in an SD card via USB adapter daily.

 

Hmmm... I think I see what's happening. If the drive is formatted for Mac, it can only be accessed if you initially connect it to Mac when asked - not to Windows. So when Parallels asks what you want to connect it to:
1. If you select Windows, it will give you a USB icon in the Windows toolbar, but won't give you and eject option. It also won't mount it as a valid drive in Windows, so it can't be accessed.
2. If you select Mac, it will give you an assigned drive in Windows Explorer so you can interact with it - but it won't let you eject it if you've already started interacting with it, not even after choosing 'Disconnect' from the secondary menu in Windows.
3. If you selected Windows, the only way to get it back to Mac (or vice versa) is to go to the Parallels Devices menu and unselect (or select) the drive in the USB menu.

Looks to m like macOS still thinks Parallels is using it no matter what you do and won't let you eject it. Weird.

 

Finally fixed in 18.1. Thanks!